Free Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 03 - Paragon by John Jackson Miller Page B

weren’t here.
    “I get that,” Gloyd said, seeming not so tall as before. “You know me. I’m built for battle. This peaceful paradise is getting to me—”
    “I know something you can do battle with,” Seelah said, her caftan shimmering as she stepped up and put her arm around Korsin. “I think I saw them preparing lunch back in the main hall.” Korsin smiled.
    Gloyd glared at the couple for a moment before lettingloose with a churning laugh. “What can I say?” he said, patting his paunch and turning. “The lady knows me.”
    Korsin looked past the retreating hulk to see another figure. “Ravilan! What’s
your
next grand plan to get us off this rock?”
    “Nothing along those lines,” Ravilan said. The crimson man of Tilden’s description stepped forward and regarded his leader civilly. “Not today.”
    “Really? Well, we’re all getting older. The mind forgets.”
    “Not this one, Commander.” Ravilan ran his finger along his right cheek tendril—an expression of thoughtfulness among the Red Sith. It made Seelah’s skin crawl. She gripped Korsin tighter. Onetime quartermaster for
Omen
’s complement of Massassi warriors, Ravilan had been left without a mission after his charges died during their first days on Kesh. Since then, he’d held a sequence of odd jobs. More importantly, he’d become the spokes-being for the Fifty-seven—the surviving crew members whose bloodlines to the red-skinned Sith species ran truest—and for those who, like Gloyd, were less interested in living on Kesh than leaving it.
    But Ravilan’s lot had grown increasingly bleak. His people hadn’t numbered fifty-seven since their arrival. A dozen had fallen due to accident or professional incompetence—and none of the children of Ravilan’s people had lived a day. Kesh had not been kind in equal measure to all its guests. As motives for wanting to leave went, his were fairly strong.
    But he did not bring him before Korsin today, apparently. “There’s something else,” Ravilan said, eyeing Seelah. “People in the service of your … your
wife
have been trying to document the ancestries of all our crew. They have grown quite insistent,” he added, cocking an eyebrow-stalk.
    Feeling Seelah’s grip tighten further, Korsin rose. “Your people don’t have to worry about that, Rav. Human crew only.”
    “Yes, but many of us have at least some human blood,” Ravilan said, walking along the colonnade with Korsin. The crowd parted; Seelah walked gingerly behind. “And many of your people have some of ours. The merger of the Dark Jedi line with that of my Sith forebears is an article of pride to my—to
our
people, Korsin. To have someone picking it apart—”
    Korsin continued walking, enjoying the view of the ocean, strands of silver in his hair glistened in the sun. Seelah stepped up her pace to get closer. “It’s still a foreign planet,” Korsin said. “We don’t know what killed your Massassi when we landed. We don’t know what’s been happening to—well, you know.”
    “I certainly do,” Ravilan said, looking out at the ocean without seeming to see it. His coloring had faded to a somber maroon hue in his time on Kesh, and his earrings and other Sithly ornamentation only served to make the man beneath look more drab. “This is a world driven by tragedy, Korsin. For
all
of us. If you’d accept one of my people in the crèche as midwife, we might be better able to understand—”
    “No!” Seelah said, interposing herself between the two. “They’re not medical personnel, Korsin. In conditions like these, we’ve got to have some controls!”
    Ravilan shrank back. “It was not a slight, Seelah. Your staff have done quite well since our mission turned …
generational
in nature. The Sith thrive.” His face, wrinkled with age and worry, softened. “It should be so for
all
of the Sith.”
    Seelah looked urgently at Korsin, who waved his hand dismissively.
Dismissing us both?
she wondered.